Mandala Tea

so much love for mandala puerh. Western brew of this one because if i don’t have time for gongfu i still want to be drinking them! Had a couple cups of these a few days ago and it was so good to have after such a ling hiatus. At this rate i may have no tea in my cupboard by the end of the year lol

tea from the other day. Realised i really need to get to work on my puerh when i have the chance. Don’t really have the ability to do a gongfu session to just brewed this up as a long western brew to kick the day off. Doesn’t do it justice but better to drink it than not :)

Drinking this one today. Not a lot of time for tea, so i thought this would be great since i can have a little cup, and come back for more throughout the day. I really do love the shou’s that Garret finds…nearly all of them are delicious and right up my alley!

sipdown! Terri is my most awesome tea sister who sent this my way. But i suck. I was drinking this in the morning and apparently i’m a little tired and stressed still because without thinking i picked up the leaves and tossed them out with the other cup of tea i was drinking….there was no way to salvage them and yes…i stared long and hard at the garbage trying to figure out if i could get them out. Sooooo i didn’t get as many steeps out of this one as i wanted to but i DID get enough out of it to know that i really enjoy this one. I have more of this in my cupboard (i think it’s the 2012 version) so i’m looking forward to getting to have more and actually finish steeping it! sorry terri! :(

This is a really tasty & gentle shu, absolutely free of wierd ammonia or fishy tastes. The early steepings were of sweet semolina, with a nice creamy kind of texture. Then it took on a coarsely ground whole wheat bread kind of layer, followed by a rich well aged peat, then a light aromatic wood like cedar. A lively sensation built up around the edges of my tongue, & although I got sidetracked & steeped some of the rounds much longer than intended, the flavor remained sweet thoughout, with no bitterness ever. Another sipdown!
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I had a nice long session with this Shu, which I love.
5G + Yixing (rinse) X 15sec/30/45/60/90 etc…

Every cup was wonderful, with a creamy texture, a sweet fruity kind of flavor, & a nice thick mouth. I really like this one a lot.

This is a sample that Garret sent with a recent order. Thanks you SO MUCH, Garret!

I never drink as much Puer as I’d like to. I just don’t have time to do multiple short steepings all the time. My solution is to go with 7Grams steeped 3 minutes in my mug. When it comes to Shu, this almost always results in an amazing cup of tea. I resteep adding a minute, & again adding another minute, etc until the tea has nothing left to give.

So, that’s what I did. I’m on the 3rd steeping now & it is still rich & dark, sweet, & delicious!! The sample is generous enough that I’ll get to try it again using shorter steepings, & I promise I’ll give a much more detailed report then, but for now I can say that I’d like to pick up a cake of this, plus I’ve been eyeballing another yixing pot on the mandala site, & some other things, LOL. It’ll probably be another month before I can afford to buy anything (well…there is the Butiki order that I need to finalize tonight…but after that, I need to go back to the Hiatus Group, cuz I’ve been bad!).

I came home from my errands & made a pot of soup, using parsnips, carrots, onion, garlic, & broccoli from my garden, plus one of the last store purchased japanese sweet potatoes. I say one of the last because sometime in the next few weeks I’ll dig up all of the sweet potatoes in my garden. I’m keeping an eye on the weather, because they do not like a frost at all. I’ll never forget the year my sons & I were out there in the dark, as it quickly got colder, digging in what was gratefully a nice loose bed, groping with our hands to find them all. Hopefully it won’t be quite like that this year!

Cool damp weather requires delicious nourishing soup! It also lends itself to shou, & this one has a nice earthy & nourishing feel to it as well.

The last of my sample from Garret. I’ve been sipping gongfu steepings of this in between other teas, & it is delicious! Thanks so much Garret. I’ll probably have to include some of this in my next Mandala order!

I apologize in advance for this lame review.

I enjoyed a nice long session with this shu while I was teaching this afternoon. It is a sample of the loose version, sent to me from Garret.
It’s very tasty, but I didn’t take any kind of notes or anything. I just kept going back & resteeping. Thanks Garret!

I drank multiple steepings of this during the afternoon, while I was cleaning & rearranging my sun room, then watering all the plants. This is such a lovely mild & sweet tea, with a thick & creamy feel initially, & with an excellent mind clearing kind of energy to it. Later steepings take on a lemony quality as well. This is one of those that can be steeped over & over & over again in the yixing. I’d still be drinking it now, if I was still at home.

This was my tea after lunch for a couple of hours. It starts out kind of sweet & slightly smokey, with somewhat of a thick mouth, which later takes on a lemony feeling, especially under the tongue.

… Snow :( :( :(

Anyways, brewed the last of this up yesterday because I was trying to get myself into a pu’erh mood and drink some of mine up. Unfortunately, no dice, as my tummy didn’t really appreciate it. I guess I’m just not a big fan of shu pu’erh. Oh well. It’s still pretty good as they go – very earthy, rich, and smooth, with minimal fishiness. Just not what my palate prefers, and I should probably stop trying to force it! :P

Also, sipdown! 983.

Thanks to TerriHarpLady for letting me sample some of this popular pu’erh! I’m not always a huge fan of shu pu’erh, but was curious enough to want to give this one a shot.

I gave it a 10s rinse before steeping… unfortunately I have no idea how long I steeped it for. Either 1 or 2 min, I think. Just no longer remember! Anyhow, the result was probably the best shu pu’erh I’ve had. Sweet, earthy, absolutely no fishiness. It was exactly what I was craving right then. I’m pretty impressed! Glad I have enough for at least one more go :D

I love black tea. I also love other teas, but black tea is still my favorite. It is what I choose to start my days with, at least most days.
I’m really enjoying the black teas that I’ve gotten from Mandala, this one included. I don’t have much of a description to give, as I drank it hours ago before we went out to breakfast with another couple. But it was tasty & satisfying, just a basic lightly malty cup of goodness.

Whee, first rating for this one! I used about 1.5 heaped tsp leaf for ~8 oz water that was left to cool 3 minutes after boiling.

Liquor brewed up very clear & almost colorless, with a strong aroma of cooked vegetables, more green & less buttery than that of comparable teas I’ve had. It was very drinkable, with little astringency and a rather juicy mouthfeel. Didn’t really wow me, but maybe further infusions will reveal something more interesting.

This has been a lovely Mandala Tea weekend for me- Black Pearls (one of my new favorites) on Saturday and Noble Mark on Sunday. Doesn’t get much better than that when it comes to enjoying fine tea.

The dry leaf has an earthy aroma just as one would expect from a pu’er. One large tablespoon (after two very quick rinses) in 8oz boiling water for 30sec for round one; round 2 for 45sec; then combined in my 16 oz Zojirushi travel mug. Infusions 3 and 4 (1 min each) were just as enjoyable a few hours later. The tea has an appealing combination of flavors – chocolate, fruit and a little cream yet a bit earthy as a pu’er usually is.

This pu’er is delightful – silky, smooth and solid texture with slightly sweet aftertaste; a dark reddish brown color; and good for multiple enjoyable steeps. It left me wanting more so what could be better in a pu experience?

thank you terri for sharing this with me. I have some of the loose version of this as well in my cupboard that i recently purchased from Mandala. I know that garret is going to be doing something in the near future with this and the phatty 2 that they have now so i wanted to make sure i got a chance to try this one out before then. I’ve been drinking it most of the morning and haven’t been focusing on that particularities of teh tea on purpose. I just wanted a morning with this to get a general sense of how i felt about it. At some point in the future i’ll go through the steepings and make notes but today? Today i am simply enjoying this for what it is. A delicious puerh i could drink nearly every day.

First of all, I always look for the fun factor in my tea experiences. These brown and gold pearls are fun to watch in the hot water – I love watching tea in action as it unfurls during the first infusion.

Yesterday morning I steeped four of Mandala’s Black Pearls in 8oz of boiling water and immediately resteeped because I drink my morning tea in a 16 oz Zojirushi travel mug. The flavor is fantastic – chocolate and malt with a slight straw note. I love this tea! I’ve had it several times and I always enjoy four 8oz infusions with the initial four pearls (although infusions 3&4 are not nearly as flavorful but enjoyable nonetheless). Without question, this tea is currently one of my top five teas.

4/28 sipdown

Sad to see this one go but it was nice to have this morning as an interruption to the black teas that i was having. This will be a restock from Mandala any time i want a little visit with an oolong. :) I just won’t be all the time haha

whoops! somehow this came out of my cupboard by accident at some point so um +1 tea today ugh. I had a cup of this because i needed something that i knew was refreshing and delicious and would clear my tastebuds of the adagio teas i’d been drinking. This is almost gone since i’ve been sharing it with a number of ppl since this is one of the best, if no the best milk oolong that i’ve enjoyed as a NON lover of oolongs… will restock when i eventually finish this off

sipdown! Garrett sent this along as a free sample when i placed my first order from Mandala. As it’s an oolong, i didn’t want it sitting around too long so i opted to drink it down asap. Additionally, the bags that mandala use for their samples are perfect for using to split off the 52 teas that kittenna and i jointly purchased lol Heavy duty sample bags to prevent contamination for the win!

I almost thought about passing this one off to kittenna or raritea as they seem to prefer milk oolongs but figured if i’m going to try all the teas, i better get cracking! This is fantastic! All i can say is that the girls here should order some from mandala because i think they might like it. It’s nothing like slaone’s milk oololng, which i recall kittenna not liking as much…it’s fresh and creamy and i can understand that toffee sense from the description. I’m going to have to resteep this a bit today, which of course will slow down my cupboard progress but this is totally worth it. thank you garret!!